Easy ideas for bringing people together

Reminders are such a huge help to me -- I literally can't get anything done without setting up reminders for myself in my calendar. But where I end up falling short is when I volunteer to do something for someone else and I'm on their calendar (but forget to put it in my own). Suddenly, without my reminders, I look like a total flake. And I hate it!

What's saved me is that more and more of the groups I participate with are using VolunteerSpot to schedule all our activities. So when my child's teacher creates her parent teacher calendar schedule in VolunteerSpot, then sends an email to all the parents that has a link to VolunteerSpot, I choose the slot I want and I'm on the calendar (and the teacher gets no double bookings!). Even if I forget to pop that one in my calendar, VolunteerSpot always reminds me 2 days before the appointment.

We also use it for many of the parent and sports activities we work with. So I click the three days I can work at the swimming pool snack bar and VolunteerSpot reminds me before each one. As the parent leader of our first grade garden, I inherited a clipboard full of names and times people want to work. I entered those assignments into VolunteerSpot, and the tool handles all the reminders - my job is easy!

This type of reminder service for volunteers can go a long way toward cutting the "flake rate" -- people that fail to show and make volunteering harder than it should be. It's just one of the many ways VolunteerSpot makes scheduling and coordinating volunteers so much less time consuming and so much more rewarding. And the free reminder service saves volunteer coordinators a lot of time on the phone too!!

Community Service can take many forms. Volunteers are needed in so many places, from libraries, to schools, to parks, to nursing homes, to charities of all kinds. When you are looking for a community service opportunity, you may come up with the best type of service, by designing and running your own community service project. Community service for you, is really the most meaningful of all.

The other great thing about designing and running your own community service project, is that you'll be fired up about it and enjoy it more. It gives you a chance to bring your true passions and talents into a setting where they have community impact and personal importance.

Let say you love designing and sewing. Some people have created projects to make warm hats for premature babies and supply them to hospitals. Some have made soft blankets to send to kids in emergency shelters. Now think of what you could do to make a difference.

Sometimes it's not about making things, it's about doing things. Some people can't stand to be indoors, so working every week at the local library is a kind of torture. But what about offering a little league in your area your help as an assistant coach? What about taking the kids to your favorite stretch of beach and making sure it's free of trash and debris? Or, contacting a community or HOA park about doing regular clean up with your friends? These are all things that need doing, and you can craft the service to things you like if you design it yourself.

Another great idea is to get your friends involved. Create a community work day and a project. This could be cleaning and repairing a playground at a nursery school or day care center, installing a garden at a senior center, or installing jumps for dirt bikes at a community park (with permission of course!). VolunteerSpot can help with simple and effective scheduling -- write up the jobs and the supplies you'll need then email out to all your friends and let them hop on board. Take photos of before and after on your work site (and photos of all the laborers) to document your project and you'll have gained both great community service and great project management experience -- all while hanging out with friends.

Community service for you is really for everyone. So get started on designing your own community service action today. For Family-Friendly Ideas about volunteering with kids, please check out our free eBook (click here).

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Pictured above is Cindy H and her third-grade daughter. Cindy is a high school teacher and mother of two from
Asheville, NC. She organized a family and friends beach cleanup at their favorite
vacation spot outside of Beaufort, SC.

Back to school planning for PTA and Booster clubs often
happens in May or June as school is ending. New officers are installed,
farewell flowers are handed out, bookkeeping is finalized, and off we go to
summer fun.

For those of us with volunteer committees, a few minutes
spent getting organized can mean a major time saving going into the school year
in the fall. Whether it’s making a list of all the supplies needed for back to
school night or new parent orientation (and then making sure they’re on hand
that night!) or simply finding the people you need to help on volunteer
projects at school, these preparations will back the back to school process for
parent volunteers so much smoother.

One of the mistakes time-crunched people make is to just
rush in without the planning step and just do it all themselves. That’s another
reason why it’s so important to take a moment before things get crazy (say in
the “lazy” days of summer) to get everything set up for a smoother operation.

VolunteerSpot is an ideal solution for most of your
volunteer scheduling, coordination and reminding. Created by a business process
expert and frazzled PTA mom, taking a few minutes to set up your activity using
VolunteerSpot’s simple planning wizard will save school parents time with all
these kinds of activities:

Back to School Night

Recess monitors

Lunch monitors

Room moms

Classroom parties

Parent Teacher Conferences

Landscaping duty

Book Fairs & Fall Carnivals

Mentoring & Homework Helpers

Library Assistants

After-School Care

Concession Stands

Field Trips

Bake Sales

Service Projects

Carnivals

Auctions

So before summer gets away from you (it hasn’t started, so
you’ve got tons of time left!) get started thinking about how VolunteerSpot can
make your back to school season easier than ever.

VolunteerSpot loves to highlight the
good works of our users around the country. Our spotlight today shines
on Marguerite Kennedy, Principal of Gavilan Hills Academy in Gilroy, CA.

What's your role at Gavilan Hills Academy?

I am the owner/principal of a small private school (K-8, 40 students) just south of Silicon Valley in California. We provide a variety of educational and life experiences for our students. Along with high academic standards we also offer a variety of classes, including sewing, violin, cooking, and chess while involving our students in hands-on learning experiences.

What are you organizing with VolunteerSpot?

We started using VolunteerSpot for our garden this year with fabulous success. In past years we had a problem getting parents to consistently volunteer to help. Now, with the VolunteerSpot calendar system, we got our garden ready and planted the earliest ever.

What’s one piece of advice you have for parent volunteers out there?

Use VolunteerSpot! It gets the message out to all parents and ensures they show up by sending reminders. I don’t have to remember to remind parents when they pick up their children or ask for help each day as I speak with parents.

Why did you decide to use VolunteerSpot?

We heard of it through one of our parents and it was very easy to get started.

Anything else you’d like our readers to know about your school and parent volunteering?

Our school is successful for many reasons, but one is the dedication of our parents to help when needed for projects such as the garden, field trips, celebration days, etc. One way we keep our tuition at a reasonable level is by having involved parents.

We salute Marguerite Kennedy and all the volunteer
heroes out there everyday working for our kids, our schools and our
communities! If you're using VolunteerSpot,
write and tell us about what you're doing, and give us a chance to
shine our Volunteer Spotlight on you!! Just email us at
VS@volunteerspot.com.

My kids look forward to the end-of-year Talent Show all year long. At recess, they practice skits, dances, songs and other talents. They chatter about what surprises their friends are likely to reveal, who will perform together, and who will be outrageously funny.

With district budget cuts and PTA coffers light, many schools are turning to the annual Talent Show / Variety Show as a fundraising opportunity. Many churches, congregations, summer camps and community groups have rich Talent Show traditions involving both kids and adults.

We'd love to hear your creative and memorable Talent Show ideas -- please click 'comments' below to share them with our readers. To spark your thinking, we've put together a free eBook that we hope will help make your next Talent Show a fresh success. Included are fundraising opportunities, talent suggestions for kids of all ages (and teachers too), and tips for coordinating the event. Please click this link to see our free eBook: Talent Shows for Fun and Fundraising.

VolunteerSpot's free online scheduler helps the Talent Show Committee schedule parent and teacher helpers. Set the schedule of job duties and supplies needed in minutes and invite parents to help with an email invitation or link. Parents sign up for a shift with a few clicks, and VolunteerSpot sends automated confirmation and reminder messages to help everyone keep their commitments.

Have fun with your Talent Show! Save time and make behind-the-scenes a success with VolunteerSpot's free volunteer scheduling software.

Summer is the time to finally get to those big projects we've been putting off, or finally have a chunk of time to devote to something important. Now that my kids are old enough, I'm looking forward to using a chunk of summer time not just for swimming and reading, but for teaching my kids the value of service to others.

To start, we sat down as a family and talked about how fortunate we are, and that we live in a wonderful place, and it's important to try to help other people and our community. Each of the children then talked about what kinds of things they thought they could do to help out, and here is a list of what they came up with:

Pick up trash

Feed animals

Clean up at the park

Help other kids

Read to other kids

Give money to people in need

It was truly heartwarming to hear how quickly they came up with ideas of how they could help, and specific actions that they were capable of doing. Once I had their ideas in mind, it was time to figure out what summer projects we could do together. We've already set aside a 2 hour block of time each week when we will go out in service to the community, and I'm now calling the local parks department and library to find out if there are roles we can play.

I was discussing this idea with one of the other parents at school and a number of them wanted to join in. And so, with 5 families working together, we're using VolunteerSpot to set up each of our projects, assign jobs, figure out what tools we need and ask people to bring them. We've already set up four big projects for the summer and more people want to join with us.

So as I sit, waiting for May to pass and summer to start, I know our summer service projects are going to make a difference in our community and a really big difference in my kids.

Across the country, High School Booster Clubs, PTAs, and graduating Seniors have embraced Project Graduation, a safe, after graduation celebration. Anyone with a teenager old enough to drive knows the relief felt when our kids make it home safe this time of year. If you're not a parent of a teenager, perhaps you saw this week's Grey's Anatomy when a group of Seniors end up in a fatal car accident on graduation day. Some chilling statistics:

Alcohol is the #1 drug of choice among teens in America.Alcohol kills more young people than all illicit drugs combined.A national survey conducted in 2006 showed that 73% of high school seniors have tried alcohol.Over 2,000 youth ages 15-20 were killed in traffic crashes involving alcohol in 2005.

Started in 1979 in the Oxford Hills area Maine after they experienced a tragic seven alcohol and drug-related teen deaths during commencement season, Project Graduation has spread to all 50 states, providing a safe and fun filled post-graduation night. Creative booster club parents and student committee members plan engaging activities that last all night in a lock-in drug and alcohol free environment.

Music, games, food, communal art projects and more. Some schools partner Project Graduation with a community outreach activity like a food drive. The only thing limiting the fun and power of this event is your committee's collective imagination. In many communities, local retailers sponsor events and provide food, prizes and take-away gifts for Seniors. Below are some time-tested Project Graduation favorites. Please be sure to check the Comments section of this post and add your school's memorable Project Graduation traditions.

DJ, live bands, and entertainment such as comedians and performance artists

If you're on the Project Graduation committee, check out VolunteerSpot's free and easy online volunteer sign up tool. With our free volunteer scheduling software, parents pick a volunteer spot with a few clicks and choose how they want to help: as chaperons, setting up and cleaning up, entertainment, and more. VolunteerSpot also helps assemble donations of needed food and supplies. No more reply-all email or clipboard signup sheets to have a fabulous event - just simple online volunteer coordination powered by VolunteerSpot.

School Carnivals are a blast for kids and adults alike, and with cost-cutting everywhere, PTAs and school Booster Clubs are using them as an important fundraiser. Some schools haven't made the leap yet, because setting up and running a school carnival seems like it's just too hard. The truth is, with some simple organization, and an easy way for parents to sign up and work a school carnival shift, a school carnival isn't that hard to successfully pull off.

The other great thing about school carnivals is that unlike an auction, which is usually an adults only event, school carnivals are serious fun for the whole family and serve as a community spirit raiser in addition to being a fundraiser for the school.

At my school, our Carnival took a siesta for a few years as more energy was put into the annual auction. But then a couple of our more experienced parents remembered how much fun it was and spearheaded a drive to bring it back. Thank goodness!!

I have a confession -- I'm not a person that enjoys the cost or chaos of County Fairs or amusements parks -- and I was biased against a Carnival for that reason. But with heavy arm-twisting from both kids, suddenly I'm standing in the field holding streamers of tickets looking for the next great opportunity to have fun. My favorite booths were ones that our parents and kids just made up -- there was a pen full of shaving cream and the kids sloshed around in it with some big play balls and you couldn't hear a conversation for the gales of laughter coming from the kids. Locking people up in made-up jail cells is always good, and here in Texas, cascarones are a must have (*for those of you outside the area, this is a real eggshell filled with confetti or birdseed that you smash on people or throw at them. Totally biodegradable and probably improves the soil!!)

Carnivals are really only limited by two things -- the inventiveness and the involvement of the parents -- because it takes a ton of people and coordination to make these things fly!! But with a good plan and a good volunteer coordination setup, these events can be put on and taken down in a short time window, with a major positive impact on the bottom line and the school community. Here's a link to our free eBook with Carnival Ideas to spark your planning: Fabulously Fun School Carnival Ideas.

VolunteerSpot's free volunteer scheduling software is perfect for coordinating your school carnival volunteer workforce. One coordinator can simply set up the entire schedule of volunteer tasks from preparation beforehand, to set up, staffing and finally breakdown and cleanup. It may take a ton of people, but once the job assignments and dates are in VolunteerSpot's free coordination and scheduling tool. simply pop in the parent email list and invite them to help. Shifts get claimed from each parent's email, and the coordinator can watch (in real-time) as the event gets staffed up. 2 days before each shift, volunteers are contacted and reminded where they are supposed to be (especially handy if they signed up months before and forgot!). On the day of the carnival, printouts of what everyone has signed up for and where they are meant to be can be brought to the event to help things run smoothly. All this handy coordination muscle is absolutely free, so start using VolunteerSpot today to make your school events way way easier.

The crack of the bat, the smell of the grass, lazy afternoons swatting mosquitoes -- baseball season is here and Little League baseball parents are enjoying one of the true joys of raising our kids. Parents of Little League baseball players don't just watch the games, they are the baseball coach, they assist and they volunteer for snack and concession stand duty, plus a number of other key posts that make the season run smoothly. Sometimes filling all those Little League baseball volunteer roles and reminding parents of their jobs can be a real hassle, but VolunteerSpot gives
parents the opportunity to focus on the fun stuff
(playing baseball) by eliminating the busy work of coordinating parent
volunteers. This free online tool is as simple as point and click online shopping, but makes it super easy to setup the entire season schedule of jobs, email parents to sign up and suddenly it's done! It even works as an add-on to team coordination web sites like ETeamz.

Please join the other parent coaches and volunteers
out there who are using VolunteerSpot to simplify their Little League
volunteer coordination needs. In a handful of minutes, the coach or
volunteer coordinator sets up a schedule of needs using our simple
online calendar planning wizard. Parents are invited using an email
message, URL link or a button on your team or league website. In just
a few clicks, parents choose when and how to help, and the schedule is
updated in real time as volunteer spots fill up. VolunteerSpot sends
automated reminder and thank you messages helping everyone keep their
commitments. Great for:

Volunteer Umpire Scheduling

Snack Shack / Concessions Stand (scheduling who works it and what supplies are needed)

Car pools

Parent Coach Assistants

Snack Schedule

Batting/Pitching Practice Intensives

Field Maintenance Teams

Tournaments

and more...

Start Scheduling Little League Volunteers Now with VolunteerSpot's free and easy sign up software! At VolunteerSpot,
we're ready to help you get rid of paper volunteer sign up sheets,
reduce you workload, increase parent participation and help make your
season a success!

VolunteerSpot loves to highlight the
good works of our users around the country. Busy parent volunteers do a lot of the heavy lifting in our schools, Scout troops and communities. Our spotlight today shines
on Donna Taniguchi, volunteering mom from Glider Elementary School, San Jose, CA.

What's your role as a volunteer leader at your school?I am currently the Volunteer Coordinator for our elementary school's primary fundraiser. The event is an annual Walk-a-Thon involving 670 students plus teachers, parents and family.

Where else do you volunteer? With three children, there have been plenty of opportunities for me to be active in a volunteer capacity. Each of the children are involved in parent participation activities including Girl Scouts, basketball, dance troop, Japanese school, preschool and elementary school fundraising events.

How did you become a volunteer leader?I had a taste of volunteering early on as a Brownie and Girl Scout member myself. I participated in a number of volunteer activities while in college including serving on the student body, officer of a youth volunteer organization sponsored by Kiwanis and volunteering in a local hospital. As a full time mom, it's now part of my job description. I'm very interested in learning of ways our family can volunteer together in our community so our kids can experience volunteering.

What advice do you have for parent volunteers out there?Every volunteer activity, no matter the scope of participation, really makes a difference. Everyone's contribution adds up to great stuff. It's our own example/actions that will influence the involvement of today's youth in future volunteerism.

Anything else you’d like our readers to know?Not everyone at our school has access to a computer so we rely on a variety of methods to recruit and inform volunteers. As a volunteer coordinator though, it was still beneficial and efficient to use VolunteerSpot. I entered everyone's name and phone number who didn't have an email address and VolunteerSpot sent ME a reminder message to contact and remind THEM. The others (with emails) all got automated reminders. Nice!

We salute Donna Taniguchi and all the volunteer heroes out there everyday working for our kids, our schools and our communities! If you're using VolunteerSpot,
write and tell us about what you're doing, and give us a chance to
shine our Volunteer Spotlight on you!! Just email us at
VS@volunteerspot.com.

One effect of tough economic times and tighter budgets is that many of us
are facing a long summer of child-minding and childcare juggling.
It would be great to send the kids to camp for a while, but what if kids camp just isn't in the budget?

We'd all love a quality camp experience for our kids and not just
because we'd like a break or need child care. For our kids, staying
social in summer creates special bonds that supersede the day-to-day
stress of school life. Kids camp opens up important new possibilities and encourages our kids to be more independent.

So how do you create a quality camp experience for
your kids without breaking the bank? Some planning, some cooperation
and some kids can equal a fantastic neighborhood camp experience. To
make it easy to get started, VolunteerSpot has created a brand new eBook: Do-It-Yourself Neighborhood Camp. Please view it below, and read on for more information about setting up your own DIY Camp. To see the eBook full-screen, click on the icon in the lower
right corner that looks like a little projector screen (it's just to the right of the page numbers). When you're
done, pres ESC to come back to this post.

One
of the keys to a successful DIY Neighborhood Summer Camp is clearly
laying out the responsibilities of all parents, very similar to what
you might do with a babysitting coop. Some important points:

Agree
on safety rules all will abide by (for example: one-third of American
families own guns; there needs to be a safety rule that if guns are in
the home, all weapons are locked and secured). How many days will each
parent work? For elementary age kids 1 adult per five kids is probably
a good rule of thumb, plus it works out to 1 day worked equals four
days off! Parents with 2 kids work one shift for each of them. Younger
kids need a higher ratio.

What is the age range of kids? Toddlers are harder to watch than 12 year olds, think this through and get agreement.

Are
there pools at any of the camp homes? Will the camp pay for a
lifeguard? Is there a fence? What about sunscreen and sun safety?

Will
the host camp home provide snacks or will parents send them. If the
camp provides snacks are there guidelines about what's appropriate or
is a junk food free-for-all completely fine since it's summer?

Is
video entertainment allowed? Under what circumstances? For me
personally, I don't want my kid supposedly going to camp and then
watching SpongeBob all morning (or something less savory).

Discipline:
What are the discipline guidelines, conflict resolution plans, and
ultimate penalties available? This is a critical point for every to
agree to.

Agreeing to ground rules ahead of time is important
because it will prevent conflict later. It also prevents any one parent
from feeling overly scrutinized -- these rules apply to everyone, and
once they are in place, every one can feel comfortable knowing that
supervision and programming will meet their expectations. Then comes
the fun part -- planning the activities and setting the schedule.

If
camp is batched in 2 week increments, it can rotate through all 10
houses so each family gets an equal dose of chaos. If some families
just can't host, there has to be a trade-off to make up to whoever
hosts twice. (e.g. A working parent may pay a stay-at-home parent in
exchange for hosting an extra day.) And finally, set up the activity
plan and so everyone knows what happening and figure out the supplies
needed to run the activities. A budget should be set up for supplies
(agreed on by the members -- there's nothing worse than one person
thinking that a hundred dollars is a reasonable budget when most feel
like $10 is more than enough. We're in a recession here folks, be
sensitive!!)

Before camp begins, have an orientation meeting with
all campers and parents present. This gives everyone a chance for
introductions and reassures the kids that all the parents know the
other parents and kids. You can let them know all the fun they'll be
having, and a little bit about the discipline plan and camp rules.
(Kids knowing that there are agreed on rules and consequences while all
the parents are standing there can prevent a lot of "rule testing"
misbehavior during camp itself).

Finally, the genius part is you can easily set up the entire calendar of workdays, locations, supplies in VolunteerSpot, providing easy reminders to each worker and a good place for all participants to keep track of everything that's happening.

So
get ready to get out there and have some real fun this summer -- for
you and your kids - start your own camp and let everyone - adults and
kids -- make some great new memories this summer.

Not only does volunteering make you happy, it's also good for your career! Please read on to hear what writer Bob Weinstein of Troy Media has to say...

NEW YORK, April 29, 2009/ Troy Media/ --

Employers
like to hire candidates who have volunteering experience. In fact, many
companies encourage their employees to volunteer a few hours a week;
others run their own volunteer programs.

But
the importance of volunteering for a worthwhile cause transcends a
paycheck and career advancement. The true payoff is the heartfelt
satisfaction that comes from improving other people’s lives -- and
often, the privilege of saving them as well. Volunteering is one of
those rare and unique activities that can affect every aspect of your
life - your career, relationships, personal philosophy -- and
transcends all racial, ethnic and educational barriers.

In
the late 1990s, Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and a respected proponent of
positive psychology, said that scientists should study what was going
right with people's lives rather than concentrating on what was going
wrong. Seligman said that the “highest level of sustained happiness
comes when people can give a wider meaning to their lives. Helping
others through politics, voluntary work or religion can help people to
realize that there is something bigger and more important than them.”

Several
studies have found that regular volunteer work increases life
expectancy, and is also good for your immune system and your nervous
system. Just as proper diet and exercise promote good health, there is
evidence that a healthy lifestyle should include a dose of
volunteering.

The
nonprofit sector in the United States is made up of more than one
million organizations. In addition to the traditional places to
volunteer, which include hospitals, libraries, and religious
organizations, there are some that might not have occurred to you, such
as:

Unsure about the right non-profit for you? Here are six tips that can help you make a decision:

1. Look for a group that represents issues you feel strongly about.

2. Think about the skills you have to offer. Many volunteer positions require familiarity with certain equipment or athletic or communications abilities, for example.

3. Consider learning something new. Volunteering could open new career doors. Many non-profits are always looking for people who are willing to learn.

4.
Look for organizations that can help you realize untapped goals. If
you’ve always wanted to take a cooking class, try volunteering at a
food bank that teaches cooking skills, for example.

5.
Don’t over commit. Your heart may be in the right place, but it’s very
common to promise more than you can deliver. Start off slowly to make
sure that your volunteer work doesn’t conflict with other commitments.

6. Don't overlook virtual volunteering opportunities. Thanks to technology, there are organizations that offer the opportunity
to do volunteer work over the Internet – for example, giving free legal
advice or typing a college term paper for a student.

It's always fun to see all the creative ways volunteer leaders are using VolunteerSpot's automated signup sheets to save time and make it easy for volunteers to get involved. Here are some of the activities that were organized in April:

Keep up the great work everyone!! We're here to save you time and make it easy!

Get Started Now! VolunteerSpot takes the hassle out of volunteering. We make it point
and click simple to schedule all your volunteer activities with our
FREE powerful real time calendar sign up tool. Volunteers sign up with a click and VolunteerSpot sends automated confirmation and reminder messages to help everyone keep their commitments.